What is Space?

It’s an interesting question. I’ve been asked for my thoughts on space by a design student, Stephen White.

“What does space mean to you? Whether that means time away from education/family/work, or an area away from the world. A place that is your own. How does space make you feel and what emotion does it provoke within you?”

Here’s what I wrote for him:

Space is possibility. It is the imperative to explore and discover. Whether it is outer space or the inner space of atoms or of our brains, it leads to fundamental questions. Those questions are the beginning of a journey of understanding and enlightenment.

Who are we? Where are we? What are we doing here? Why are we here? Where do “I” begin? When did this begin? When does it end?

Space means there is something rather than nothing, and that means everything.

The Green Remix

So, earlier this summer I worked on a show called Green Tech Today with Sarah Lane at the TWiT Network. It was a highly produced, magazine style program that was meant to whet the green whistle of the TWiT audience and also (hopefully) pull in a bit of a new audience for TWiT.

For a variety of reasons, the show was stopped after releasing only two episodes. We shot five episodes that you may eventually see in various stages of dress in other programming since they will never be released as Green Tech Today. Why?

Well, Green Tech Today has been remixed and gotten a facelift. Thankfully, it wasn’t relegated to the dustbin, but given a second chance. No longer is it the Green Tech variety show. Rather, it’s now:

The TWiT Networks Top 25 Green Tech Innovators Series

I will be hosting it along with the world-famous Becky Worley, who is also the executive producer for this fine show.

And, just released yesterday, here is the first of the new incarnation of Green Tech Today:

If you like the show, be sure to subscribe and get your audio or video preference every week while the series lasts! Some up coming highlights include SeaGen’s wave power and Zero Motorcycle’s electric bikes.

Teach Your Children Well

A line from a song by Crosby, Stills, and Nash that speaks volumes to the report that is out this week on the worsening state of science education in America.

Why is it that we can argue about immigration, health care, the Tea Partiers and whether or not President Obama is a citizen, but stand by idly while the public school system deteriorates?

Is that where the voting public really wants this country to go? Is ‘Idiocracy‘ the future of our country?

I hate to even entertain such thoughts. Thankfully, I know many, many hard working people who care deeply about the education of our country’s children, and who will keep working to see that improvements to the educational system are made, with or without such a report.

Is the situation really as dire as the report makes it out to be? Maybe, maybe not.

In a USA Today article discussing responses to the report, there is a quote from one B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown:

“It’s easy to understand with the America COMPETES Act up for renewal why advocates would frame the situation this way. But it seems less helpful to frame things in a voice of crisis rather than a more reasoned response. Things aren’t as bad as this report paints them.”

Mr. Lowell issued a study in 2007 that concluded there were more than enough science and engineering graduates for the jobs that were available. So, ok, there are lots of graduates, but are they qualified, Mr. Lowell? That could be part of the problem. Just because people are graduating does not automatically make them able to perform a job.

Also, why are there fewer jobs than graduates? Why isn’t our country exploding with technological industry? Wouldn’t funding R&D through the America COMPETES Act lead to more jobs in that sector?

In this issue, as in all others, it does help to try to see as many sides of the issue as possible. But, the side I keep coming back to is the side with the children who are going to be our future. If the children are not educated well, there is not much hope for the future of this country. Shouldn’t protecting the future be something of a priority?

So, Mr. Lowell, I do think that framing this issue as a crisis is necessary. How else will it get the attention it deserves when there are so many loud mouths clogging up the media?

Since when has a reasoned political debate worked to fire up the public (and thus the politicians) in recent history?

Where is Whitney Houston when we need her most!?! (And, I mean pre-crackhead Whitney who sang with such conviction, I almost believed she believed what she was singing)

Watching the Numbers Go By

I became aware of this PBS oil leak widget last week.

There is something mesmerizing about watching the numbers scroll past.

The numbers of gallons leaked is so high at this point that it seems unreal. How did this happen? Why isn’t it fixed yet? Can that really be the low estimate?

I can’t even wrap my brain around the enormity of the disaster. What do the numbers really mean?

So, here are some numbers I’ve calculated as I try to make sense and get perspective:

The low estimate of around 20,414,200 gallons (and rising) is about 486,052 barrels of oil, or 30 Olympic sized swimming pools. This quantity of oil would fill the tanks of approximately 1,360,946 cars, assuming a tank size of 15 gallons. That’s more cars than the number of people who live in San Francisco.

Or, it could fill my car’s tank nearly 1.4 million times. My car gets 25 miles to the gallon on average, and can potentially travel 375 miles on one tank of gas. I could conceivably drive somewhere around 510,355,000 miles with the low estimate of how many gallons have leaked so far. That’s 20,414 times around the earth’s equator, or 2041 times to the moon (or about 1020 round trips).

It’s 93 million miles to the sun, so I could make the round trip there almost two and three-quarters times. And, depending on where Mars is, I could get there and back either 7 times or once.

On the high end of the leak estimates, I’m looking at being able to travel about 4,400,000,000 (that’s 4.4 billion) miles! That could get me to Pluto when it’s at its closest.

Obviously, I know my car couldn’t travel in outer space, but it’s interesting to think of what the oil that’s leaking into the Gulf of Mexico could have done.

The low estimate of the leak is far lower than the amount of oil being produced per day for our consumption, but the high estimate is getting up there… a bit more than China and Iran produce in a day. Interestingly, depending on the estimate you choose to look at, we are either looking at a disaster that is simply two times as large as the Exxon Valdez or something that is somewhere between the first and second worst oil spill in history.

I can only hope that the worst case estimates are not correct, but regardless, this is big and is bound to get bigger until it is fixed. The numbers and constant news reports are mind-numbing, but don’t get complacent.

If it matters to you, make some noise that this is not what you want for your world.

Synthesizing Our World

Most of the media, yours truly included, was abuzz this past week about the news from the J. Craig Venter Institute that they had created a bacteria with a fully synthetic genome. Now, how far the proclamation was taken was a matter of sensationalist bent; was it “artificial life” or something less sci-fi?

In my personal opinion, which I tried to discuss a few places, it is a landmark report if only for the sheer technological know-how. The Venter Institute has proof-of-concept of various techniques working together for the first time. The bacterium they created are copies of an existing bacterium, but the copy genome was produced base by base in a dish rather than inside a living organism. Also, the copy genome was inserted into another species of bacteria whose genome had been removed (it was a shell of its previous self), and successfully took over the management of the bacterial body.

Now, the Venter Institute has generations of little baby bacteria that are the product of successful asexual bacterial reproduction (i.e. cell division) from that first synthetic generation. If they are dividing and multiplying like regular bacteria, I have to say it is a job well done. But, if they truly want to create artificial life, they are going to have to figure out how to create the bacterial body that goes with the DNA.

I’m sure scientists are already working on that problem, but in the meantime, the Venter Institute will be working with the DNA to determine what genes are necessary for life, what the minimum size limit is for a genome to run a microbe, and which genes can be added successfully to bacteria to make them do our bidding.

In addition to this very visible bacteria story, another equally interesting and potentially sci-fi scientific development hit the journal Nature this last week. Robots… little tiny robots that crawl around inside your cells to fix things are a bit closer to reality.

According to Bethany Halford of Chemical &Engineering News:

“Using DNA as the key construction material, one group of researchers created a nanoscale robot that can autonomously walk across a track, and a different group prepared a nanofactory in which DNA robots can carry and deposit nanoparticle cargo.”

The track in question will eventually be your cytoskeleton, the tiny fibers that give your cells their shape, and act as the transportation routes for cellular delivery systems. If the groups involved in these two studies can put their work together, we will have tiny machines that can carry payloads from place to place within your cells - a goal of researchers wanting very specific intracellular chemical delivery.

Also from the article:

“A goal of our field is to refashion and reimagine all the complex biochemical machinery of cells to suit our own purposes—to have synthetic molecules that can move around and carry cargo as protein motors do in cells, to have molecules that act as chemical factories, which make a particular product based on a particular chemical input, and above all to make these processes modular, to make them engineerable,” notes Paul W. K. Rothemund, the Caltech scientist who invented DNA origami.”

So, someday in the possibly not-so-distant future we may have synthetic bacteria that do our bidding in the environment, AND synthetic machines that help us live healthier lives.

Viruses Are Cool

And, yes, they cause colds. But, when it comes down to it viruses are the sneakiest survivalists around… especially considering that they aren’t even alive.

Last Friday, I got to talk with Dr. Vincent Racaniello, Dr. Rich Condit, and Dr. Alan Dove (PhD turned science writer), virus experts the lot of them, on their show, This Week in Virology. Ostensibly, I was invited on the show to discuss my transformation from scientist grad student to scientist media person, but I was really just there for the virus science.

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to this podcast, I highly suggest giving it one. The hosts are Columbia University professors, and they eloquently discuss the finer details of the viruses that make you sick. However, it’s not a show for the scientifically faint of heart. These guys really dig into the nuts and bolts of the living dead. The conversation is fairly high level, but they do a great job of making it interesting. I found myself hanging on their words wanting to learn how the little things work.

But, I am a certified geek. I thrive on the details because to me they add nuance to the scientific story unfolding around my ears.

You will just have to see what you think for yourself. Check it out at www.twiv.tv.

I’m on Justin.TV!

So, on the prodding of my friend and old Revision3 colleague, Neha Tiwari, I started doing a live chat program on Justin.tv last week. It’s called the Science Chat, and that’s what I do. I answer questions and talk about science for an hour.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a live-streaming set-up that allows me to take callers and actually vocally chat. But, I am able to respond to all the people who show up and ask questions or make comments in the chat room.

I have to say that I was completely overwhelmed the first week by all the people who were really interested in asking questions about science itself, recent news items, or were just curious about the way things work. I had a hard time keeping up with the flow of the chat, but I’m not complaining at all. All the activity made for an intense hour that I think was extremely fun.

And, I think lots of people who showed up enjoyed it too. I had over 30,000 unique views that first week, and hit that mark again this week. Not too shabby for a little science show… check out the premier…

Watch live video from DrKiki on Justin.tv on Justin.tv

and the 2nd episode for yourself…

Watch live video from DrKiki on Justin.tv on Justin.tv

Anyway, I definitely have to thank all the people at Justin.tv for getting this started, (moderating all the unnecessary commentary in the chat room) and making it a success right out of the gate. Neha, you and the Justin.tv team rock! I never would have started doing this or found out about the great Justin.tv audience without your suggestions.

It’s been such a great experience that I’m definitely going to be chatting on a weekly basis, if not more often. I’d also love to get interesting science-y people over to my home studio to do the chat with me (I do have two microphones…). I’m sure company would make it even more fun. So, let me know if you, my science-y friend, are interested in chatting with me and the Justin.tv audience.

Let’s see where this thing can go…

I’m Judging You.

Well, either you or your scientist friends.

The Scientist Magazine just announced “The Labbies”, a competition to find:

scientists and scientific laboratories that show real tech savvy in presenting their research to the wider world. Send us your coolest videos, neatest lab websites, sharpest blogs, most user-friendly interactive multimedia, and any other technologically-advanced presentations you use to communicate your science.

I’m one of several judges who will be rating your cool-factor, “including the father of the infographic Nigel Holmes, … Jeffrey Segall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY, and David Kirby of the University of Manchester.”

I am really excited to see what scientists are doing in the multimedia and transmedia spaces these days. It’s no longer a flat website world. It’s an immersive universe of information and communication. Scientists need to understand this change and progress with it in order to keep up with cultural demands.

So, whatchya got?

Dust Off That Synthesizer!

Bring out the Moog, and prepare your Theremin!

Or, maybe it’s a banjo and some cowbell… hell, I don’t care.

I’m just looking for original science-y music for the This Week in Science 2010 Compilation Album.

The guidelines are that it needs to be about science or inspired by science AND YOU MUST BE ABLE TO GRANT ME LICENSE TO USE IT.

I don’t want something by Blackalicious unless you are in Blackalicious. That said, if you are a friend ofBlackalicious, tell them to get in touch with me.

Why am I making a science-y music album? Well, I’ve made an album for our home radio station’s annual fundraiser each year for the past four years, and I’d like to go for a fifth.

Our station, KDVS 90.3 FM in Davis, is a non-commercial, free-form radio station that gets more than half of its budget from its annual fundraiser. We set aside a portion of the limited cd pressing for use as premium gifts for people who donate to KDVS during our show. The remainder of the cds are sold later in the year in order to recoup our production costs. TWIS makes no money from these albums.

What we need, however, are super cool science-y songs donated for use on the album. Without songs, there is no album.

As a musician what do you get in return? Well, in addition to being on the album, you will be played during TWIS repeatedly during the year, linked to from the TWIS website, and get the warm-fuzzies from helping to support free-form, non-commercial radio and science all in one go.

How can you submit a song? Email me (kirsten at thisweekinscience dot com) with an mp3 or a link to an mp3 of your song(s). Please, put TWIS Compilation in the subject.

If your song is chosen for the album, I’ll be in touch to ask for a higher bit-rate, uncompressed .aif or .wav file and your John Hancock on a basic licensing and use agreement. We like to take care of a lot of the post-production when we master the album, so the less compressed / produced on the final version the better.

Any questions, just email me at the address above.

Oh, and the fundraiser is mid-April, so I’ll need songs asap! Submission deadline is March 15th.

AAAS 2010 in Review

Each year the AAAS annual meeting brings together scientists, science organizations, and journalists from all over the world. This year the meeting was in San Diego. It was rainy.

A few highlights of my trip were the many discussions of dolphins, doomsday scenarios, and conversations about the changing face of science communication.

It turns out that dolphins might be a great model species for studying type 2 diabetes. However, several other researchers suggest that dolphins should be given non-human person status, which would make that kind of research incredibly difficult. The only reason that people feel all warm and fuzzy about dolphins is that they have an intelligence that we can recognize as similar in some ways to our own. This led to think that human-like intelligence should not be a factor in determining conservation status for animals since intelligence is something we don’t even understand and have a hard time defining. We need to get over ourselves and our over-inflated sense of importance in the universe before tackling these issues.

Mathematicians are finding new ways to use their skills by working with social scientists and urban planners to figure out how to plan for the weird things people do on sidewalks, roads, and in buildings.

It was reinforced that scientists need to remember to keep the public in the loop when planning and executing potentially controversial experiments. Transparency is key to things like hadron colliders and geo-engineering. Keeping people in the dark only leads to greater mistrust and development of more conspiracy theories. So, go talk to the people, you scientists!

And, on that note I’ll end with some points about science communication.

Bloggers for the large part were not allowed press access to AAAS. This is because historically AAAS has only allowed journalists working for accredited organizations to attend. Now, many freelancers, like myself, get around this issue by joining writing organizations like NASW. So, for all you serious science bloggers who didn’t get to attend this year, or who are regularly denied access to professional meetings, until the media landscape changes and new media professionals are considered press in their own right, consider joining an organization that will give you that accredited status. That’s how you get into the parties with the free drinks!

Secondly, I was on a panel about empowering young scientists to help communicate science to the public. Several examples of what an organization called “Sense About Science” in the UK is doing in conjunction with “Voice of Young Science” were brought to light. There are lots of young scientists interested in helping to dispel myths related to science and health. We also discussed various aspects of what is wrong with science in the media these days as well as what is right with it. I expressed my view that new and social media are going to play an increasingly important role in getting science out to the public. Right now, although these online media forms do allow “echo-chambers” to form quite easily, they do allow exceptional access to information and distribution of ideas.

Finally, mass media is still slow to accept independent online media, and even resents its presence (for obvious reasons). However, science journalism can only benefit from people from all areas of the communication sphere working together. Mass media is shrinking, but it will not disappear, and independent media will continue to grow. Together they can make science communication even better.